Karin Laub and Sam McNeil report on the alarming conditions for thousands of Syrians living in Jordan

Welcome to “Village 5” in Azraq, a camp within a camp where a barbed wire fence isolates thousands of recent arrivals – whom Jordan considers a potential security risk – from other Syrian refugees.

Village 5 was set up in late March as part of an uneasy trade-off between Jordan and international aid agencies trying to speed up admissions of tens of thousands of refugees stranded in remote desert areas on the kingdom’s border.

Under the deal, Jordan agreed to let in around 300 Syrians a day, or five times more than before, on condition that newcomers are isolated in Azraq for more security checks. Jordan says strict vetting is crucial to prevent Isis extremists, who control large areas of Syria, from infiltrating the kingdom.

In turn, aid agencies agreed to put traumatised war survivors behind barbed wire, if only temporarily.

Yet neither side expects the new admissions deal to empty out two rapidly growing encampments on the Syrian-Jordanian border. Instead, the population there – now standing at 64,000, half of them children – is expected to reach 100,000 by the end of the year if fighting in Syria continues.

A sorry sight

The two encampments sit between low earthen mounds, or berms, that run in parallel lines, 1.2 miles apart in an area where the border isn’t clearly marked.

Refugees live in tents or shelters made of tarpaulin, wood scraps, even women’s scarves, exposed to the desert’s extreme cold, heat and sandstorms. Lack of latrines and trash collection has led to the spread of diarrhoea and infections. Delivering aid to the camps has become one of the UN refugee agency’s most challenging operations in the Middle East, said a spokeswoman, citing “remoteness of locations, extreme weather conditions, lack of access roads, and risk of escalating insecurity”.

Yet saving lives trumps other misgivings at a time when Syrians are increasingly trapped in their homeland.

Neighbouring Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, which have absorbed the bulk of close to 5 million Syrian refugees since 2011, have severely restricted admissions, while doors to Europe are slamming shut. Jordan has taken in around 650,000 refugees and says it has already done more than its share.

The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council in Jordan, Petr Kostohryz, said it is “perhaps the only country in the region retaining at least partially open borders”.

Safety but at a cost

Refugee Khaled Mallak, 34, his wife and six children were among those who made the dangerous trip from Syria to the Azraq camp in Jordan’s eastern desert. They left Damascus in mid-January and reached the border camp three days later. It was, Mallak said, “full of insects and even rats”.

After three months, the family were admitted to Jordan and moved to Azraq. In Village 5 they received food and basic supplies, but often waited for hours to collect them. They were allowed to leave the restricted area after a month, and now live in a part of Azraq where they have greater freedom of movement.

Meanwhile, aid agencies face growing challenges at the berms, a 2.5-hour drive from the nearest Jordanian town, including an 80-kilometre stretch over desert.

Aid workers can’t enter the camps for security reasons, and set up distribution points near the southern berm. Jordanian troops stand on top of the earth mounds and screen refugees.

Refugees permitted to climb over the berm fetch water or line up to register with the UN or receive canned food, dry rations and fruit. Crowds have repeatedly surged toward aid workers amid rumours distribution was ending for the day, an aid official said. Troops have reacted with teargas.

A lawless atmosphere prevails in the camps, said aid officials, citing accounts by refugees. War profiteers with no intention of seeking asylum steal rations from the most vulnerable.

It is not clear how long the faster pace of admissions will last, but Jordan is unlikely to let in large numbers of people. It says it has confidential evidence that Isis sympathisers posing as refugees are trying to infiltrate the kingdom.

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